When Southern Highlands opened its doors and fairways, the advance billing foretold that it was going to be a great course, clearly one of the elite new private clubs in America. It's apparent that the hype was totally justified.

Hole #9 at Southern Highlands Golf Club

Recently, Golf Digest placed Southern Highlands in its top six best new private clubs in the country and ranked it as the best new private club in the Western U.S. How fitting, then, that the UNLV golf program, with a recent national championship and a history of being ranked near the top of the college golf standings, should choose Southern Highlands as its official home course.

"Being so close to McCarran Airport, Southern Highlands is one of the first places we like to take a new recruit and his parents when they come to town," UNLV golf head coach Dwaine Knight says. "Just one look out at the course from the clubhouse veranda, with its panoramic view of the entire Las Vegas valley, provides a great first impression of our city and the wonderful facilities available to a young man considering our program."

With $40 million (exclusive of land costs) and a rare collaboration of architects Robert Trent Jones, Sr. and Jr., Southern Highlands offers 18 distinctly beautiful and unique golf holes which honor the land upon which they are sculpted. Just six months after the course opened, it was deemed worthy by the $4.25 million Invensys Classic PGA Tour event to join the three-course rotation. One of many holes that had the world's best golfers buzzing was the 622-yard uphill par-five 18th, with its split fairway and 16 acres of land and meandering water and sand. The hole affords a great view of the $16 million clubhouse, where golfers convene shortly after their rounds to take in the scenery and discuss the joys and challenges of playing Southern Highlands.

The collaboration between this wonderful new nationally-ranked golf club and a proud UNLV championship golf program is a perfect marriage of class, beauty and distinction.